INSPIRATION

This is a compilation of photos from the time that GK VanPatter and Elizabeth Pastor spent at Scient, prior to founding Humantific. It has been posted on YouTube for some time, but we thought we might repost it here.

GK VanPatter: “Our innovation-culture-building time at Scient was incredably exciting and full of learning experiences. I was the very first thinker on the Scient leadership team with a design background and had the privilege of working directly with other Scient leaders. Shortly after our arrival, Elizabeth and I conceived the inclusive innovation strategy of Scient 1.0 and the Innovation Acceleration Labs concept. Within 30 days of arriving, we had the greenlight to not only build Innovation Acceleration Labs but to train every person in the company in cross-disciplinary innovation skills.

We then proceeded to design the physical environments in New York and San Francisco, design the innovation learning program, build the delivery teams, and train several thousand people on both coasts–including many clients. Key to what we were able to accomplish was that we built on the strengths that had already been created within Scient. In a period of a couple of years, we learned a tremendous amount on the front lines of innovation-culture building that we carry with us in practice today. The Innovation Acceleration Labs significantly contributed to the public perception of Scient as an innovation driven company. Today we still work with numerous Scient colleagues in many companies around the world.”

In the Humantific Innovation Archives, we have many of the early books and papers from the history of creative thinking, applied imagination, applied creativity, creative problem solving, systems thinking, human intelligence, learning styles, structure of the intellect, etc.

From time to time we will post a few examples here, as these early materials contain many gems in spite of the fact that the world has changed a great deal since they first appeared.

This book How to Think UP, by Alex Osborn, is an early example, as it was published in 1942.

For those interested in understanding such history, these books are wonderful windows into the early thinking based on the context that existed at that time.

At Humantific, we have great respect for this early work, as we all stand on the shoulders of this history whether we know it or not. 🙂 Written at a different time, we do not have to agree with everything in the materials to appreciate these works.

The early pioneers of creative thinking methods were primarily focused on jumpstarting idea creation, and not on complex challenge/opportunity framing—not on the research and visual sense-making that would now occur as part of framing.

Seeking to encourage imagination, many of these early works are incredibly optimistic regarding American ingenuity and the challenges facing the country and the world. Here, one can see the seeds of the early “everyone can be creative” philosophy, where it came from, and how it was first applied.

Here are a few quotes from How to Think UP:

“When necessity reaches a crisis, the crisis cries out for ideas. American ingenuity is rising to the challenge.”

“Some of life’s stony problems can be cleared away by outside science, others by judgment, but most of them by ideas.”

“Ideas are the priceless keys to good living.”

“The more ideas we can think up, the more satisfying our lives will be.”

“Even old folks can think up things when they try.”

“There is no royal road to creation. The production of ideas can never be a science but will always be an art.”

“Too many employers just ask for ideas without specifying what about. Occasionally a problem is assigned, and ideas are asked for within that limit. Or employees are set to work in a group and asked to think up together. But, by and large, rank-and-file people are nearly always invited simply to pick their own subject and to do their brain-storming on their own.”

“Who can think up ideas? You and every other normally intelligent person. But you have to try.”

“Everybody loves to be a critic or a judge. Judicial judgment calls for no great mental sweat.”

“Ideas more than luck will land the job you want.”

And the all time classic: “If you can’t originate an idea, think up how someone else’s good idea can be turned into a better idea.”

Of course, it is equally interesting to reflect upon the context in which these early works were created.

In the introduction, by Bruce Barton of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn Inc., he writes: “There is so little literature that might help Americans in their endeavor to think up more ideas for the war effort that I persuaded Mr. Osborn to send this manuscript to a publisher. I hope a large number will be circulated in American offices and plants.”

While some innovation consultants remain focused, even today, on ideation techniques, most operating in the realm of organizational and social change understand that much more is now required.

We are, at Humantific, always interested in the past, present and future of innovation. One of our internal projects underway involves researching and constructing a visual timeline that combines the history of the applied creativity movement and the history of the design thinking movement. If anyone else out there is working on such projects please feel free to let us know.

Those readers studying the parallel histories of visual sensemaking, information design, information architecture, statistical graphics and or data visualization will know that long before Richard Saul Wurman, Edward Tufte, Karl Weik, Otto Neurath, Gerd Arntz, Isotype Institute, Jacques Bertin, Fritz Kahn, or Willard Brinton came along, there existed various forms of what we now call visual sensemaking or social sensemaking. For decades, it has been a set of professions in constantly changing evolution. It has been referred to by numerous names, fragmented in many directions, focused in various terrains with different skill-sets, tool-sets and purposes, but the work of unpacking and then explaining complexity has been around for more than 100 years. We love to find and study early visual sensemaking!

Shown here, from the Humantific Collection, are three examples of 19th century sensemaking in the societal context from Rand McNally World Atlas, published in 1890. Inside the atlas are a dozen beautiful diagrams that accompany hundreds of pages of maps and pictorial engravings.

Often, the individual creators’ names have been lost in history, but what they managed to create in 1890 with the tools of that era is rather amazing. Referred to in atlases of the day as “statistical diagrams” or “statistical graphics,” they were often visual depictions of data-driven facts focused on subjects such as Population, Race, Crop Yields, National Debt, Religions, School Enrollment, etc. Also appearing were more abstraction-based depictions (not based on data), such as visualizations of what the Solar System was perceived to be at that time in history.

In these 19th century data visulization examples, you can see the sensemaking device or technique of making comparisons. Depending on the subject, those comparisons might be from country to country, state to state, or year to year. More than one hundred years later, depictions of comparisons remain central to many sensemaking diagrams made today. Professional sensemakers know that comparisons provide context, and context aids in understanding.

As in the majority of data visualization being created today, most 19th century sensemaking work seen in atlases was focused on depicting past and present states. At Humantific, we call these pictures of Yesterday and Today.

Also fascinating is that more than one hundred years after these 1890s visual comparison models were published, the American organizational theorist Karl Weick was speculating, in a rather non-visual 1995ish way, on the dimensions of sensemaking in organizations, pointing out that in order to give meaning to the present, humans compare it to similar events from their past. Many such unsyncronized realizations can be found in the various literatures.

In the 19th century, thinking about what we might be tomorrow and then moving towards that picture was not part of the statistical diagrams business, as it is for some, but not all sensemakers today. The truth is, a significant part of the now-very-popular data visualization community is still generating pictures of yesterday and today, not fully understanding what is missing.

Of course, one can generate pictures of yesterday and today from data sets, but creating pictures of tomorrow requires additional dimensions of skill in the mix, including applied imagination, and cocreation.

Effectively cocreating such visual pictures in real time with humans from multiple disciplines in the room requires additional skill dimensions that were not in the mix in 1890, and in some circles are just being recognized today. Today at Humantific, we integrate past, present, and future visual realizations as part of cocreated change making. For more than 15 years, we have been operating on the understanding that data visualization, in itself, is not enough to drive and ensure changemaking. In the real world, 99.9% of the time, change making has to be socially constructed. In other words, it has to be cocreated. This is part of the everyday bridging work that we love to do.

Viewing historical examples of data visualization in person, having original material on hand helps to inspire and inform how we think about our own work today and to better understand how its different!

We love to see others inspired by Humantific. Each year, we receive many requests from graduate students and PhD students who want to interact with Humantific, ask us questions, study what we are doing. Although we are not set up to accomodate all requests, we do meet with PhD students on a regular basis. Here is one example:

Silje Kamille Friis, a PhD student at Learning Lab in Denmark, studied Humantific, IDEO, Bruce Mau Design, and eTypes as part of her thesis focused on “Conscious Design Practice as a Strategic Tool,” published in 2008.

During her week-long stay in our Humantific New York office, Kamille had many face-to-face conversations with GK VanPatter and Elizabeth Pastor. She also attended NextD WorkshopONE summer session.

“The purpose of the “Industrial PhD” Conscious Design Practice as a Strategic Tool is to create new, in-depth understanding of how strategic design consultancies carry out design work, in particular the design methods and processes. It is a journey into new territory. The concept of strategic design is a recent development within the field of design, focusing on the strategic thinking important to identify opportunities for innovation and growth.”